


every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you

by babykanima



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Cousin Incest, Cunnilingus, F/M, Masturbation, Non-Linear Narrative, Rape/Non-con Elements, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Underage Sex, they are both dramatic little shits tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-07 06:57:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16403510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babykanima/pseuds/babykanima
Summary: “If I cannot have love, then I shall have a kingdom.”or; Jon and Sansa fall in love despite their matching soulmarks.





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> okay so this is definitely not the best example of a well-thought out, linear piece of work but i hope you enjoy anyway? also this is the first time i've ever written smut so any (constructive) feedback is appreciated! 
> 
>  
> 
> full content warnings in the end notes, please check them out if you have any concerns
> 
> — _[come visit me on tumblr](http://swainlake.tumblr.com/)_

* * *

Everyone had a mark scrawled on their skin, or if they don’t then they will.

It’s inevitable.

The mark is a name, a promise of a soulmate.

There are many theories as to where they come from, many different beliefs held by many different people.

Here is a secret they would none of them believe: they’re all right.

And wrong.

* * *

Like most stories, Sansa's favourite begins with happiness.

In the beginning the gods had made humans with four arms, four legs and a single head with two faces. A gift, it was said. From the moment they came into the world they were together, they had connections. 

And they were stronger for it.

It wasn’t fair.

Torn apart by jealousy, by fear, by rage, by greed, by cruelty, by sorrow—

Torn apart.

The _who_ isn’t important and the _why_ will never be known but this is what is known:

The gods mourned the fate of their children who were now cursed to wander the world with only two arms, two legs and one head with one face.

Always trying to find their other half.

It is said that _love_ is the name given to the desire and the pursuit of completeness.

And the gods did love.

In a rare act of benevolence, they granted their children a boon to make finding their mates easier.  
  
A mark.

* * *

It was her face he noticed first.

Unlike the rest of their siblings, Sansa had never been the sort to willingly engage in rigorous activity; much preferring to look at pretty things or hear sweet songs than entertain any tendencies for horseplay.

This is what he thinks to himself when he realises that he’s never before seen her face so _red_. 

Resplendent in the mid-morning sun, she lay sprawled across the settee before the window with a pillow tucked neatly between her legs.

Radiant. She looked radiant.

There was no going back after that, not for him. 

She looks far from relaxed, a small frown gracing her face as though she was trying to solve a puzzle. “Sansa,” He croaks.

A gasp, and then her eyes find his where he stands near the still-open door. “Jon?” She cries, eyes filling with tears. Of embarrassment? Of shame? “Oh _gods_.”

His heart breaks at the sight, and he swiftly moves to close the door. Taking several strides towards where she’s still splayed on the couch, he kneels before her and clasps her twitching fingers between his hands softly. “Don’t cry, sweetling. It’s alright.”

“But you saw me,” She moans and _ah_. Embarrassment then. 

Not shame.

“I saw nothing,” He assures her.

This seems to be the entirely wrong thing to say though because rather than looking reassured she lets out a sob and buries her face in her hands. 

“Sansa, _please_.”

“I was being wanton.” She confesses through her fingers so quietly that for a moment he thinks he must’ve misheard.

“What?”

She lifts her head and he immediately recognises that stubborn set to her jaw; Arya does the same thing when she’s trying to convince he and Robb that she’s old enough to practise swordplay with them. “I was being wanton,” She repeats. “Jeyne was telling me—well. Nevermind.”

“What was Jeyne telling you?” His lips move without permission.

She peeks up at him through her lashes, “That women can find pleasure in the marriage bed same as a man.” He tangles her fingers in his own and tugs her lightly forward. “She overheard the cook’s daughter bragging about it in the kitchens.” 

“Bragging about pleasure?”

A sharp inhale, “ _Yes_. That. She said it’s not something ladies talk about but I wanted to try. Just to see. ”

“‘Try’?” He echoes as he brings one, and then the other of her hands to his lips where he places a kiss upon her knuckles. “Did you not succeed?”

She bites her lip and finds herself unconsciously rubbing her thighs together. The pillow hadn’t been enough, not nearly. In a flash he lets go of her hand and captures her chin between his fingers. “No?” 

She shakes her head, “No.”

A soft smile, Jon’s smile, appears then and she melts into him. 

She doesn’t know what’s happening right now but she knows Jon will look after her always. Even when she was terribly rude to him, he always loved her. She knew this as surely as she knew both the old and the new gods were real. “The pillow is too soft.” He murmurs, pulling the cushion from between her legs and moving her to straddle his thigh instead.

“Jon?”

“Do you want help being wanton, my lady?” He looks at her through his curls and she’s surprised to feel a warm lick of desire between her legs, far more pleasurable than any pillow had been able to induce.

One look and he could ruin her.

Spoilt though she may be, Sansa had never been an especially _greedy_ person. She had never had to covet or want for anything much because she was beloved by the North and given anything her heart could desire before she’d even had a chance to desire it but now? Here with Jon?

Sansa _wanted_. 

She sinks her weight down, widening her legs as his thigh presses _up, up, up_ , between them. Her dress is a flimsy barrier and she can’t help but keen into his mouth when he shifts his leg to press more firmly against a particular spot. There. What was _that?_ She rolls her hips experimentally, trying to chase the feeling.

Her smallclothes were damp, a slippery tease as each movement pressed the fabric to her secret place in the most delicious of ways. This was like nothing she’d ever experienced before; her own amateurish attempts at self-pleasure were _nothing_ compared to this.

She feels as though she’s about to dive off the edge of a cliff.

Or fly.

If only she could—

Jon seems to sense her growing frustration because one of his hands presses down on the small of her back, guiding her movements into a halting rhythm. “You can ride me harder, sweet girl.” 

She hesitates, “I wouldn’t want to squish you, Jon.”

“You won’t.” He gazes at her tenderly. “I’ve got you.”

A few months ago she’d come upon Jon and Arya play fighting in the Godswood and she’d quickly hid behind a tree and watched. Her little sister was surprisingly graceful as she parried Jon’s blow and stuck him in the chest.

And then—

And then something changed.

Jon laughed. 

Jon was _happy_.

With Arya.

And Sansa had yearned for such thing to happen because of _her_ ever since.

Previous hesitance forgotten, she does as he suggests. A twinge of sharp pain causes her to stumble in her movements but Sansa is determined and so with a decidedly un-ladylike groan, she grinds her cunt harder onto his thigh and is rewarded when she feels something start to build within her.

“That’s it, sweet girl.” He croons as she blinks up at him slowly. “Let go.”

She shatters.

* * *

“Sansa, sweetling.” He forces her eyes to meet his own, “This can never happen again.”

“But—”

“ _Never_.”

His words were a knife in her heart; in one fell swoop he had ruined her for anybody else and then taken himself from her. Did she truly mean so little to him? Him, who she was willing to forsake everything for?

What a little fool she had been.

“You are like death,” She breathed. “You have taken _everything_ from me.”

* * *

It wasn’t until hours later that she spied the dry specks of her maiden blood staining her smallclothes and realised he truly _had_ taken everything from her.

This was the painful truth of songs, she realised. All of them were tragedies.  
  
_They_ were a tragedy.

* * *

 

They maintain a careful distance after that, each time Jon looks away from her searching gaze she tells herself she must harden her heart like a real Lady of Winter; hehad made it very clear that he was not for her. 

She calls him half-brother and pretends she doesn’t see the hurt in his eyes.

He deserves to hurt as much as she.

* * *

It culminates at a feast her father throws to celebrate the king’s arrival.  
  
Jon had been brooding all night, solemn gaze catching her own every time she looked away from her food and despite herself she begins to feel that familiar warmth in her abdomen.

She’s dancing with a Cerwyn boy, laughing breathlessly as she twirls, twirls, twirls, and then suddenly Jon has her in his arms and she’s breathless for another reason entirely.

“You look to be enjoying yourself.” He murmurs.

“Ladies like to feel wanted, Jon. Even _you_ should know that.” She flicks a lock of her over her shoulder, surreptitiously glancing up at the hightable where her mother seems to have disappeared from.

Jon’s lips twitch sardonically, “The Lady Stark has excused herself to tuck the little ones in.”

Sansa nods, “So we only have a few moments.”

“Aye, do you really want to waste them talking about him?”

“Perhaps I’ll have his name one day,” She replies noncommittally. “Besides, I didn’t realise we were even _talking_ in the first place.”

“It won’t be him.” He assures her. “Even if you never say another word to me, I know it won’t be him.”

“ _I’m_ not the one refusing to speak.” She tells him pointedly, refusing to acknowledge his views on her future soulmark.

He has about as much of a say in the matter as she does.

“What would you have us do, Sansa?” He asks plainly. “Secret assignations while Lady Stark is on the opposite side of the castle? How long would that last?”

“It could last forever!” She blurts. “It could! I would take secret assignations with you if you would give them to me.”

His eyes snap to hers and she bites her lip, “You know why we shouldn’t.”

She knows.

Knowing doesn’t stop her.

* * *

The second time is less sweet.

Perhaps it’s jealousy over the Cerwyn lad or perhaps it’s simply because Jon is as deep in his cups as she’s ever seen him but either way, she decides she doesn’t dislike his ferocity as much as she’d come to expect to after hearing her mother speak on base-borns.

Even at his most uncouth, Jon would never hurt her.

They cannot keep the rest of the world out but here, together? This was safe. _They_ were safe.

Her back is pressed against the wall, a leg wrapped around Jon’s waist as he presses himself more firmly between her thighs.

“Hold your skirts up for me, sweetling.” He pleads. “I want to see you.”

Wide-eyed, she does as ordered and secretly delights at Jon’s responding groan.

He pushes forward then upwards with a grunt, sliding through her wetness and up into her curls. She watches him watch himself move back and forth, back and forth as he chases his pleasure.

His face was lovely.

She brings an arm up to drape across his shoulders, fingers coming to bury themselves in the sweat-damp curls at the nape of his neck. “Never leave me, Jon.” She begs.

His movements stutter at that and he lets out a pained groan, “ _Sansa_.”

She knows. 

She _knows_.

“Or if you must,” She continues. “Never forget that I loved you _first_ —”

“Never.” He growls desperately, because _that_ he can promise. “I won’t ever love another like I love you.”

“Here,” She moves his hand to her breast. “Picture your name here.”

He groans, hips slamming into her once, twice.

Sansa sighs contentedly as she feels the warm wetness of his seed seep into her smallclothes. She didn’t peak but that’s fine, last time it was about her and this time it was about Jon.

Letting her skirts drop as he moves away, she swiftly turns to capture his lips in her own.

“I won’t either,” She promises him fiercely, even though he hadn’t requested such a vow from her in return. “I’ll love you forever, Jon.”

“You will?”

“Yes.” She tells him. “That’s the problem.”

* * *

“I’m sure he is as a knight from your songs.” He assures her the night that her betrothal to the Prince is announced.

They’d come together in the Godswood not long after their father’s proclamation had rang through the Great Hall, Jon burying his face in her neck while her hands came up to clasp his shoulders tightly; holding onto him as though she had the strength to keep them together forever. 

How silly their previous distance feels, she thinks. When compared to the distance before them now.

She would have a thousand arguments with him if it meant they could stay like this. She would gladly take Jon’s coldness a thousand times over if the other option was no Jon at all. 

For a long time they stood wrapped together in front of the Heart Tree, silent in their shared grief until a tear slipped from her cheek onto his own. Without giving it a moment’s thought he captured it on his thumb and closed his mouth around it.

Sansa lets out a gasp and he pulls away from her, just far enough that she could see his eyes in the low light and _oh_ how she loved his eyes. They were Stark eyes, the heavy grey of a midday storm, and when they gazed into her own Tully blues she was hit with the image of a future they could never have.

Babes with grey eyes and red hair, blue eyes and black hair. A perfect combination of them both.

It was a lovely, heartbreaking thought.

She was dragged from her wistful dreaming when he slowly slid his thumb from between his lips and brushed it across her own, turning them spit-slick and rosy.

“Jeyne said he is a golden lion,” She tells him, lips moving against his callused skin and not for the first time does he curse the Gods for their cruelty in sending him this lovely girl and making her his sister. “If I marry a lion will that make me one, Jon? Arya thinks so.”

“Prince Joffrey is a stag.” He corrects, pushing his thumb past her lips to press against her teeth. “But regardless you will always be a wolf. A Stark.”

“Like you, Jon?”

A pause, “I’m not a Stark.”

She bites lightly at the intruding digit and doesn’t disagree though he can see in her eyes that she heartily does. 

Such a fanciful thing, his little sister.

This is harder on her than him, he reminds himself. She’ll be alone in the capital without her family and what is a wolf without a pack? “There are places in the Free Cities where you can marry simply by declaring yourself such.” He muses.

A look of fascinated disbelief settles on her face and she pulls from his grasp to eye him speculatively, “You’re lying.”

“Would I lie to you?”

“Of course you would,” She rolls her eyes and tugs lightly at a loose thread on his jerkin. If she wasn’t a queen-to-be, he could easily picture her mending clothes for a husband before a blazing hearth. A pair of toddling children at her feet, one red of hair and the other dark. It was a bittersweet thought. “You’d say anything if you thought it would impress me.”

“This is not a lie, sweetling.” He vows, capturing her hand against his chest and thinking to himself that while he _was_ telling the truth, she wasn’t entirely wrong in her assessment of his scruples. “Uncle Benjen told me so himself.”

Sometimes he thinks there’s not a thing he wouldn’t do for her if only she asked.

Mayhaps that’s why she never did.

“And how would Uncle Benjen know?” She retorts, “He’s at the Wall.”

He shrugs lightly, “Mayhap there is an Essosi sellsword at the Wall?” 

She scoffs at that but remains silent, watching him play with her fingers as she silently contemplates the strange custom. Marriage with no septon? Not even a Heart Tree? It didn’t make sense to her at all. “But how would such a thing even work?”

He places a kiss upon her palm, “In these places there are no Gods to object so they simply say it thrice to their intended and it is done.”

A strange look crosses her face before she pulls her hand from his grasp, using it instead to grasp his face as she rises onto her tiptoes and brushes her lips against his, so light he could almost convince himself he’d imagined it. “I marry you.” She whispers and his heart lurches.

Another kiss, “I marry you.” 

Again, “I marry—”

His mouth crashes against her own and he swallows her words, knowing that her childish jape would be too much for him to bear alone when she left Winterfell and him behind for a kingdom. “Don’t.” He growls against her lips.

“I do.” She insists. “I _would_.”

“ _Sansa_.”

“Jon,” She replies, pressing kisses to his lips, his cheeks, every part of him that she could reach. “Jon, my Jon. I would make you a _Stark_. Let me.”

His heart breaks, “I _can’t_.”

She pushes him away instantly, stumbling back a step, two. “Will you not have me?” She challenges, chin rising haughtily but her voice is too shaky to hide the insecurity she feels at the thought of him rejecting her.

As if he would ever.

Neither of their soulmarks had made an appearance yet and he dreaded the day they would for he knew in his heart he could never love another the way he loved his sweet sister. 

The promises he’d made to her while cradled between her thighs had not been made lightly.

And it was this reason he had decided to go to the Wall.

“I will have you.” He promises, heart thumping as her face lights up at his words. As though she is not utterly unattainable to the Bastard of Winterfell for numerous reasons not the least of which being their shared lord and father. “Every night in my dreams, I will have you.” 

Face crumpling, she lets out a sob as he presses one final kiss to her brow before turning from her without another word.

Each of her cries is a knife piercing his heart but it doesn’t stop him from walking away.

He tells himself it’s the only thing he can do.

* * *

The morning of her departure from Winterfell, she pulls him aside to hand him a square of cloth she’d painstakingly embroidered her name into using thread the same colour as the fabric—it would be invisible to anybody who didn’t realise it was there. “For you.” She tells him softly, “So you can remember me.”

_So you can have my name_ , she doesn’t say but he hears it anyway. 

There was an old Northern song of a maid who fell in love with her soulmate twice, once when she saved his life and then again when he fought in a tournament for her hand; happiness over his victory turning to devastation when she discovers that he was fighting as proxy for his lord. Jon remembers his sister being moved to tears the first time she heard a bard sing it, but Sansa had always sighed dreamily over the part where the doomed lovers gave one another tokens of their affection; a torc for her and a favour sewn with a name for him.

“You will make a wonderful Queen.” 

“I will make them love me.” She agrees with a sad little smile, because his sister is as determined as she is eager to please.

“To do otherwise would be impossible.”

* * *

Sansa settles into the capital as though she was born for it, knowing that the only way to be happy without Jon was to surround herself with all manner of other things that made her happy; silks, songs, and chivalry.

Queen Cersei had said as much.

If she couldn’t have Jon, and she knew she couldn’t because he was her brother and the Gods did not make soulmates out of siblings, she might as well marry the Prince. 

This would be her consolation, she assures herself when Joffrey says something sweet and gallant and his smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. She may not get love but she would get a kingdom.

It’s a song come to life and sometimes she finds herself wondering to herself what the tune would sound like from the lips of a minstrel.

Would she cry to hear her own story?

Her father tries to usher her and Arya out of King’s Landing but she refuses for she has made her bed and now she will lie in it.

It is a choice she very quickly regrets.

* * *

Her soulmark finally becomes readable without her realising at first.

She’s once more brought before the whole of the court, stripped bare and left to plead for mercy she’s learnt will not be granted. She thinks it’s yet another cruel jape of Joffrey’s when he informs her that her brother has been declared King in the North, the first in hundreds of years.

It’s not until he commands his knights to hit _the_ _princess_ , said with a mocking grin, that she realises he was telling the truth for once. 

He doesn’t command the kingsguard to stop until her blood begins to drip onto the stone beneath her and she’s wondering if she will become both a princess and a martyr on the same day.

What a song _that_ would make.

“They call him ‘The Young Wolf’,” He bares his teeth at her. “Perhaps they should call him the _Pretender_.” 

Her nails press into her skin, “Perhaps they should, Your Grace.” 

“I just said that, didn’t I?”

“Yes, Your Grace. You did.” She replies placidly, tone belied by the wild pitter-patter of her heart. “You are so very wise.”

Joffrey looks infuriated by her imperturbable response but _she will not let him have this._

Not this time.

She has the blood of the First Men in her veins.

She is a princess of the North now. Her brother, a king.

The only pretender she sees is the one in front of her.

Her eyes lower to the floor and she squashes down every instinct screaming at her not to bear her throat to the mad king in front of her.

She knows of two Starks who have died in these halls.

She will not be the third.

It’s not until she’s granted leave of the Great Hall that she finally dislodges her nails from the soft skin of her palm and notices it, breath catching in her throat as she stumbles at the sight.

Ignoring the tittering of the courtiers around her, for it was hard for her to remember a time they did _not_ snigger so at her misfortune, she stared helplessly down at her palm.

There, underneath her unfurling fingers was her soulmark. 

_Jon Snow._

* * *

That night she dreams of refusing to kneel before Joffrey as he screams for his guards to keep hitting her. 

_I know no king but the King in the North._

She is braver in her dreams than she is in reality.

If only she had never left Winterfell, she mourns.

* * *

“Shall I share with you a secret, sweet Sansa?” Margaery whispers conspiratorially. Without waiting for an answer, her tongue comes out to daintily lick at her thumb before swiping it across where Joffrey’s name curls around her wrist.

The mark, which had previously been printed in calligraphy far finer than any Sansa has seen before, streaks across the older girl’s unblemished skin in a jarring juxtaposition. 

It was fake.

Wide-eyed, Sansa stares at the other girl. “Why?”

_Why did you make a fake soulmark? Why him? Why are you telling me? Why shouldn’t I run to Cersei right now and—_

“I haven’t got a mark,” She confesses. “They used to think that I was simply a _late bloomer_ but after Renly, well. It was eventually decided that we could use it to our advantage.”

“Decided by whom?”

A peal of laughter not unlike the sound of bells escapes the future Queen’s lips at that, “Very good question, darling.” She tucks a strand of hair behind Sansa’s ear.

Sansa knows what it’s like to be a tool, what it’s like to be used. It seems that unlike the Tyrell however, she can at least say that she has never known what it’s like to be used as such by her own family.

“What’s it like?”

“Being unmarked?” Margaery smile is softer now, wistful. “I feel like I’m always reaching for something but I don’t know what it is.”

“I couldn’t imagine,” Sansa whispers. “It sounds terribly lonely.”

“A kingdom is not a terrible consolation.” She replies with a sly wink.

And that, Sansa understands.

The older girl waves a dismissive hand and flicks her fingers to gain the attention of a servant carrying a tray of sweetmeats. “Now, enough of this dreary talk! Did I tell you of the letter I recently received from my brother Willas?”

* * *

Later that night Sansa tries to imagine Highgarden and Willas as Margaery suggested but her heart longs for the North and her soulmate and so she finds it is an impossible task.

She buries her face into the pillow, lips set in a moue of disappointment at her own childishness. Jon wasn’t here, she scolds herself. He had left her and so she had stupidly left him in return for Joffrey and lions and golden babies and therefore she had nobody to blame but herself.

If only she had been braver.

Perhaps this was what Margaery meant when she said that being unmarked was not so very bad? 

Would it hurt less to not have these regrets? But that would mean never having known Jon, never have had the _possibility_ of Jon.

Could one truly miss that which was never there?

_Yes_.

Sansa knows in her heart that she has ever been a greedy, wanting thing. 

This is a truth she will never say aloud: she would take and take and take from him, until there is nothing left of Jon that is not hers.

She wanted his pain as much as his happiness.

She wonders if this is what love truly is.

Not for the first time does she wish her song was less of a tragedy. 

Willas and Highgarden were less of a tragedy.

Still, as sleep began to overcome her, try as she might it was only one name in her mind, one man she wished for.

_Jon, Jon, Jon._


	2. two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one is darker than the previous chapter so _please_ check out the full content warnings in the end notes if you have any concerns, i'm not joking
> 
>  
> 
> — _[come visit me on tumblr](http://swainlake.tumblr.com/)_

She learns quickly that her perfect courtesies don’t work against a man like Ramsey Bolton.

She’d thought, stupidly, that her wedding night was the worst he could do to her but he delights in proving her wrong over and over again.

Her husband likes it when she screams.

* * *

It is known in the North that the world was not kind to those born from two without a matching mark. Hardship and misfortune were often their lot in life, even more so than those who were bastard-born.

To be both was ill luck.

Sansa knew this and it was this thought that ran through her mind as she stared dispassionately down at the blood soaked sheets she had just woken up in. 

She thinks—

She thinks she may have just lost a child.

“Oh no, my lady.” Her husband’s lover smirks viciously at her, “Your husband will be—”

“Leave.” 

Myranda’s mouth tightens in fury at being so dismissed but she does as ordered, turning on her heel and stomping from her lady’s rooms (the ones the daughter of a kennel master could never even hope to call her own, Sansa thinks viciously).

Her lady mother and Queen Cersei had each in their own way taught her what it was to be a mother and what they had been remiss in educating her on, her old handmaiden had taken it upon herself to explain.

Sansa had learned that to be a mother was dangerous, both literally and figuratively. 

A woman was most likely to die while in the childbed, her children most likely to die before their first name day. The world wasn’t kind to women or children, Shae had told her. Why open yourself to the heartbreak?

(Sansa had said nothing at the time but the question had brought her lady mother and her sweet brothers to mind and she couldn’t help thinking of the heartbreak the Lady of Winterfell must’ve felt _over and over and over.)_

The embarrassing truth was that she hadn’t realised she could _get_ pregnant—or rather, she hadn’t realised that what Ramsay _did to her_ could result in a child. She knows how it works, she’s not _that_ stupid, but surely the torture she endures cannot be the way innocent babes are made? It must be, she thinks. 

Of course. 

The gods hated her so much they would grant her a child as a boon for her suffering only to take it away before she could even realise.

A child of Ramsay Bolton shouldn’t be permitted to exist but was this not also her child? Her child who had the blood of the First Men in them, who was the heir of Winterfell, heir to the entire North after her brothers’ deaths.

Her child who she had just _lost_.

The noise she makes then is undignified, a croaky wail, a lame howl. Arya would’ve mocked her for it, Sansa can’t help but imagine. She can practically hear the cruel digs about exactly how much of a Stark she was, about what sort of wolf she could possibly be with a howl like _that_.

Her hands close over her sex in a desperate attempt to stem the bloodflow and her soulmark wraps around her wrist in comfort; as though it knows as well as she that her efforts are futile. She knows, but still she prays to the Mother; _please no, please no, please no._

She thinks she knows now what her own mother had felt, perhaps but a fraction but still.

Still.

She is a wolfmother who has lost her cub.

It’s a half-sennight before the bleeding stops.

Her husband doesn’t let that dissuade him.

* * *

_A trueborn son will always have the stronger claim,_ she’d told Ramsay. _And you are a bastard._ She had taken his beating in cold, smug silence; knowing in her heart that _she_ had been the winner of that battle, not him.  
  
She can taste her the remains of her broken fast in the back of her throat when Ramsay tells her the fate of his stepmother and newborn brother. Her fingernails dig into the table so hard they draw blood, _what had she done?_

* * *

And then,

Jon.

Jon, Jon, Jon.

It truly is so very sweet to see him again.

* * *

She can’t find it in herself to be too bothered by Baelish’s sneer as she hurries to disembark from her horse, this is her _brother_.

He’s missing three fingernails and a fingertip on his left hand and sports a limp as he runs to meet her but he’s _alive_.

Rickon.

Her littlest brother, who’d been barely three when she last saw him, was alive.

* * *

He turns at the sound of the door, meets Sansa’s gaze evenly from where she’d leaning back against the wood.

“Brother,” She says.

“Lover,” He hears.

She bites her lip.

They could not go on like this.

* * *

“ _Sansa_.” Jon breathes in disbelief, his eyes not straying from the mark she’d carefully concealed before now. “You have my name?”

“I do.” She confirms.

Jon reaches a hand out to lightly brush against his name upon her skin. “Oh,” She sighs sweetly. “That’s lovely.”

“You have my name.” He sounds amazed.

She nods, biting her tongue against the whimper that almost escapes at his touch. “I don’t know how.”

“I never thought—”

“We are blessed by the gods.” She agrees, then pauses. “Or cursed.”

“Blessed.” He says firmly. “You could only ever be a blessing, Sansa.”

Unbeknownst to him, the smile she flashes him then is the brightest she’s worn in years.

* * *

“My lady.” He greets her

“My Jon.”

* * *

“It should’ve been you,” Jon tells her when they’re alone and her mind immediately flashes to Baelish’s smug gaze meeting hers as Jon was being declared King in the North.

At the time a part of Sansa had wanted nothing more than to cry and rage, turn her back on those who would dismiss her so easily. But that part was quickly squashed, shoved down, down into the darkest recesses of her heart before it could take root; she would not let Littlefinger’s words poison her any longer.

She didn’t need a crown to make them love her, she would prove herself worthy one way or another.

Still.

Her soulmate was a king now.

And she was still just his sister.

She could never be anything more than a mistress to him, at best.

“I would make a terrible king,” She does her best to keep her voice light, busying herself with helping him shrug off his furs. They would have to organise a squire for Jon, she notes absentmindedly. Perhaps Lord Glover’s youngest or one of the Wil— _Free Folk_ boys.

“You would be an excellent king, my lady.” He tells her, not a hint of jest upon his face. “A far better one than me certainly.” A hand hovers over his chest where she knows his scars still pain him.

Her own heart aches in sympathy.

This wasn’t Jon’s fault, she knows. No matter what Littlefinger insinuated, she knew her soulmate, her _brother_ , would’ve given her anything she asked for in a heartbeat—up to and including a crown he never wanted in the first place.

This wasn’t Jon’s fault and she wasn’t angry, she was _scared_.

If she was Queen, she would have a kingdom to protect her. Instead, she is once again a princess and she’s learnt the hard way that is a dangerous position to be in.

Even in places like Dorne, a princess is nothing more than a pawn.

As though sensing her inner turmoil, Jon stills her hands and brings her forward to face him, thumb lightly brushing over her knuckles as he looks at her solemnly. Slowly, he sinks to the ground before her until he’s kneeling at her skirts. 

Her lashes flutter involuntarily at the sight, reminded of a song.

Kings did not kneel outside of songs.

“Jon, you mustn’t—”

“Say the word, Sansa.” He interrupts, “Say the word and I will abdicate the North. It’s yours.”

Her heart lurches at the idea, the _stupidity_ of the suggestion. 

“You mustn’t.” She reiterates more firmly, moving to cup his face within her hands. 

“It’s yours. I’m yours.”

Her throat tightens, “The North will not fight for me, Jon.”

“Then they are fools,” He spits, furious.

Unbidden, a smile makes its way onto her lips at his unfeigned outrage on her behalf. 

So unlike Littlefinger.

So like their father.

“They are men.” She tells him simply. 

“We’ll show them they’re wrong, then. Together.”

She smiles beatifically, “And that is why you are the best of them. You are what a king should be, a true king.”

“Nay.” He furrows his brow. “I am cursed with ill-luck, Sansa. Twice over. I’m _nothing_.”

“You are beloved," She corrects softly, bending down to punctuate each word with a kiss. “By the North, by our people, by me.”

A tear slips down his cheek and she kisses that away too, dropping to her own knees in front of him and pressing her body against his own.

The second-to-last time they had been this close it’d been the night before she was to leave Winterfell; they had clung to one another as though only a lack of distance could keep them together in the face of insurmountable change.

It had been a foolish hope then and it was a foolish hope now but for all that her actions mimic those of her child-self, her mind is filled with anything but childish thoughts.

“Take me to bed, Jon.” 

His eyes flick to said bed, furs already turned down by a helpful maid and his face flushes. “Sansa, we shoul—”

She cuts him off with a press of her lips, soft and slow and so, so tempting. “Take me to bed, my King.” She murmurs between kisses. “Let me show you all the ways I love you.”

Jon takes a little longer to convince but alas, not even the quietest of bastards could escape the will of the gods.

* * *

“May I kiss you, my lady?” He breathes, manners as impeccable as any other Stark child; bastard status notwithstanding.

“You may.”

He doesn’t give her a chance to change her mind, pressing his lips to her cunt and letting out a moan at the taste of her.

Her fingers bury themselves in his dark curls, pulling him closer to her in a blatant desire to keep him between her thighs. 

This must be what it means to be _truly_ wanton, she decides. 

She loves it.

Just then his tongue slips into her most secret place, moaning ravenously as he sups greedily from her. “ _Jon_!” She cries, immediately regretting doing so when he lifts his mouth from her folds to catch her eye. 

The lower half of his face was shiny with her. and he absentmindedly licks his lips as he grins unrepentantly, “Should I stop?”

“Don’t you dare!”

And so he doesn’t.

* * *

Vapid though she could be, Sansa Stark doesn’t have an unkind bone in her body.

Brienne of Tarth becomes so much more than a swornshield to her, she becomes a friend. It is for this reason she does not ask about Brienne’s soulmark.

Some secrets have to be earned.

* * *

“We just got our home back, our _brother_ back, and you’re leaving?”

She sees his shoulders clench and then release, his hand freezing before the door but her hopes don’t rise because she _knows_ him, she knows what he’s going to say already and she doesn’t want to hear it.

“Sansa—”

“You would leave us? Alone?” She barely refrains from stomping her foot like a child because this just isn’t _fair_. 

“You have Rickon and now Winterfell. My place is—“

“With me! ” She cries. “Your place is _with me_.”

“As your brother?” He spits, like he cannot stand having the words on his tongue for any longer than he has to. 

No, she wants to say. Not as my brother.

“You’re the King in the North,” She tells him instead, because Sansa has learnt nothing if not how to be cautious. “Your place is here.”

He turns toward her fully, a scowl on his face now to match her own. “I’m a _bastard_ , Sansa.”

“You’re a _Stark_.” 

“I’m not—”

“You’re a Stark,” She interrupts, because she refuses to listen to this nonsense; she will not have it. “Whether by burden of being my soulmate or because father was not faithful, _you are a Stark_. You say I am Queen? Fine. I declare it so. You are a Stark. So where is your honour?” Shoving at him harshly, unable to prevent an angry sob from escaping and _gods she hated him in this moment_. Hated him for disappointing her and hated herself for allowing herself to be disappointed. “Where is your love for the North?Your people? _Where is your love for_ _me_?”

His face crumpled, “Sansa.”

She slapped away his reaching hand, “ _Where will we go_?” She mocks. “How quickly you abandon the idea of ‘we’ when a better option makes itself available to you. You _promised_.”

He flinches as her words hit their mark and scowls at her, “You question my love for you?” 

No. 

She questioned whether love was enough.

“You promised,” She says again, softer this time. She needs to make him _see_. “And now you’re leaving—”

“For the good of the North.”

“The North needs you here.”

“The North—”

“ _I_ need you here.” She cried helplessly. 

They stare at one another for a moment, two, and then suddenly his lips are on hers and her hands have moved to his hair and the gaping hole that had been in her heart since she’d left her home as a young girl was suddenly a little bit smaller.

“I marry you.” He rasps as he pulls away from her.

“What?” 

“I marry you.” He says again, like it would make more sense the second time.

All at once she remembers their conversation in the Godswood years ago, when she’d tried to marry him and he had kissed her so hard a bruise had bloomed a few days later.

Her nails press into his skin, “ _Jon._ ” 

“I stopped you before, I stopped you and look what happened.” He looks devastated.

She nods in agreement, “We were cursed. Don’t stop.”

“Never.” He promises. “Never again.”

_I marry you._

* * *

“I would have you stay. I would have you in any way you would give me.” She later confesses.

“As my sister?” He questions.

She flinches, already beginning to move away from him. “If that’s what you want.”

“As my Queen?” He curls a lock of her hair around his finger and tugs lightly to prevent her from getting too far away.

She freezes in her movements before peeking back at him, “Queen?”

“Aye.” To her wonderment, he places the gentlest of kisses upon the curl he’s got wrapped around his finger. “Queen in the North.”

“That might be a little more difficult to accomplish than just ‘sister’.”

“I will make it so,” He says simply, as though if he said the words aloud he could speak them into being.

A reluctant smile makes its way onto her face, “How?”

“I am a king, as you keep reminding me. Kings can do what they want.”

Sansa is very familiar with that concept.

“Jon. . .” 

“The Free Folk used to say that home is where your heart hides when it has taken too many blows from the world.”

For a moment she’s transported back to her childhood, those all too-brief moments when they’d been together and he’d be regaling her with another one of his stories. To her eternal shame, those moments usually ended all too soon and not for the first time she wishes she hadn’t been such a silly little girl.

She leans down to kiss his chest, let’s him change the subject to sweeter and less complicated things. “My heart hides with you.”

* * *

Jon leaves and Rickon screams and Littlefinger smirks.

Afterwards, Sansa gets to work.

* * *

Here is what she’s learnt about Littlefinger:

he is greedy for power above all, he is fonder of sums than songs, his scar pains him in the cold, his voice becomes melodic when he lies, he’s loved only one woman in his lifetime, his eyes sharpen the tiniest amount when he thinks he’s won, he has no idea who her soulmate is. 

Here is what she’s learnt about herself: 

she doesn’t need him.

* * *

She wakes in a tangle of damp bedclothes and for a moment forgets exactly where she is.

She licks her lips, tasting the salt upon them and remembering swiftly. She was in the North, in Winterfell. 

This time there was no Ramsay, no Myranda, she was safe. 

Safe in the rooms of the Lord and Lady of the Keep where Jon had left her.

(She had protested when Jon had directed she sleep in the biggest room of the keep. “It’s yours.” She’d insisted, “You’re the _King in the North_ , Jon. It’s yours by right.”

“No it’s not, _you’re_ the Lady of Winterfell.”

“And what is that compared to a king?” She retorts.

He looked at her solemnly then, “It is the safest room in the castle. This king would have his heir protected above all.”

_Heir, heir, heir._

“But—”

_What about Rickon? Arya? Littlefinger?_

“No buts, Sansa.”) 

The braid she had painstakingly tied her hair into last night was half undone and tangled and she couldn’t help but let out a tiny whine when her fingers became caught in a knot and pulled _just so_. Her face flushed a deep red as shame filled her, remembering the last time her hair had been pulled hadn’t been quite so pleasurable—

A sound from across the room interrupted her thoughts and her eyes shifted to look over near the still-warm embers of last night’s fire, Ghost was opening his mouth wide in a silent yawn. 

He licked his lips and her thighs press together without her permission. Jon had tasked his wolfbrother with keeping an eye on her, she knew. And the direwolf seemed to be taking his orders very seriously; ruby eyes tracking her every time she moves about a room, large body immediately beside her whenever Littlefinger tried to whisper secrets in her ear. 

Jon himself had told her that he could Warg into Ghost and she couldn’t help but wonder if he was here, watching her _now_ —

The thought of Jon using his bond with the direwolf to watch over her as she slept was such a lovely one though, and she positively ached at the suggestion.

The cool low light of early morning had begun to invade the bedroom and she knows soon she’ll need to get up for the day, attend to Rickon and the keep, but this time is hers and she would take advantage of that while she could. 

Eyes locked on her brother’s bondmate, she trails her fingers lightly over the soulmark currently resting on her left breast, feeling her nipples tighten in response.

_Oh_ , but it had been so very long since she’d done this. Felt _safe_ enough to do this.

She’d been thirteen and _desperate,_ desperate for something she’d felt only once before as she tentatively slid her fingers into her smallclothes. It had taken so long, fearful as she was with Shae asleep in the next room and Joffrey asleep a mere floor away, but she had figured it out.

She was a slow learner, it’s true. But she does learn.

When she had done this before, ashamed and tentative in the room she was kept in at the Red Keep, she had bitten her lip so hard it bled in an effort to prevent herself from crying out his name.  
  
Jon.  
  
Her soulmate.  
  
Her _brother._

The one who’d shown her how to do this in the first place.

Her soulmark makes its way downwards and she doesn’t bite her lip this time, promises herself she never will again. Let the world hear his name from her lips. Let the Northmen see their how much their lady loves their king.

She was tired of hiding. 

Her fingers dip into her wetness as her eyes lock once more on Ghost’s. He looks very still and it’s only when Jon’s name falls from her lips with a choked moan that he moves.

Closer.

Her eyes widen before slamming shut because she doesn’t want to see _Ghost_ right now, she wants to see the man she swears she had glimpsed behind the direwolf’s eyes.

Her soulmark travels down her navel, flutters above the red-gold curls between her legs.

“Yes,” She cries, fingers curling. “Jon, my love. My Jon.”

She peaks quickly, just a tad unsatisfied in the way that she always is, and her fingers slip from her body reluctantly.

She wishes Jon was here.

* * *

Jon sends for her and her blood boils so quickly she’s almost surprised his impersonal missive didn’t suddenly burst into flames in her hand.

Alas, she is not made of the same fire as the women her soulmate seems so very drawn to.

And yet,

This is what not even the Northmen seem to understand: Sansa bled for Northern Independence long before any of them. 

She bled for her own independence.

She may not be a warrior queen but she will die before ever willingly giving up either.

* * *

Jon is waiting for her when she eventually deigns to attend his summons.

“Alright,” He clenches his jaw. “Have at it.”

“What were you _thinking_?” She hisses. “I knew you didn’t want to be king but—“

“That’s not why I bent the knee,” He protests angrily.

“So the rumours are true? I suppose you’d rather _steal_ a princess than save one,” She says scathingly, referencing the Wildling custom his friend Tormund had taken great joy in explaining to her.

She’d blushed then, charmed by the idea of consensual theft, but now she pictures Jon’s hands in silver hair and she wants to die. 

“The Targaryen woman is a _queen_ , Sansa.” He corrects with a sneer. “Not a princess.”

“You do not deny it?”

“I deny that the Targaryen queen needs saving in the first place!”

A gasp of outrage, “And I do?”

“I never said that.” He tells her firmly. “Sansa, dearheart. You’re being ridiculous.”

And then she truly does do something ridiculous.

Sansa bursts into tears.

Jon deflates immediately, moving to cradle her in his arms and she sinks into the warmth of him.

“I didn’t mean to call you ridiculous but to be fair, you _were_ being a bit ridiculous.”

“You have no idea the rumours I’ve had to listen to, Jon—” She protests. 

“There’s no need to be jealous.” Jon says softly, calmly.

And that’s what it was, wasn’t it?

Jealousy.

Jealousy is making her see red, jealousy is making her wish for the taste of blood between her teeth.

Jealousy and her wolf blood and her protective instincts.

She wants to _hurt_ him and then _kiss_ him and gods but she _hates_ him for doing this to her.

She’ll tell him. 

She will.

Just, not yet.

* * *

 “How many did you love before me?”

“None.”

“And how many after me?”

“None.”

* * *

 The pale Queen uncurls her hand to show Sansa her palm. Slightly blurred as though caught mid-movement and shimmering like an old scar, the unmistakeable vision of a deceased-soulmark is an _abomination_.

It is only years of experience that keeps her from flinching at the sight but still, with the instinctive gesture of girl who grew up surrounded by Northerners who were both an inherently suspicious and superstitious lot, she sends a prayer to the gods for protection.

The very worst of Sansa’s own scars were nothing compared to the horror of this. 

Absurdly, she wants Jon.

His name makes its way onto her own palm in commiseration and she carefully curls her fingers around it, as though she can keep him safe that way.

Daenerys looks painfully fragile beneath her furs and Sansa is suddenly reminded of how close they are in age and if rumours are to be believed, experience.

Young and scared, the both of them. “A throne is a poor consolation for a soulmate, Your Grace.”

“True,” The other queen concedes. “But it is a consolation I am willing to settle for. If I cannot have love, then I shall have a kingdom.”

And wasn’t that so painfully familiar?

* * *

 The day Bran tells them of Jon’s parentage she barely manages to keep her tears at bay until she’s alone.

Huge, gasping breaths rock her body as she falls before the Heart Tree and stares up at the blood-red face of the gods in wonder.

“Thank you,” She sobs. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

_Thank the gods she was not like Cersei._

* * *

 “A boy and a girl.” He says later that night, when the tears on his face have dried though the seed between her thighs is still in the process.

“Two boys,” She corrects with a small smile. “And two girls.”

“To start with.” Jon agrees with a smirk, pulling her astride him effortlessly. His eyes crinkle as he smiles at her and _oh, how she truly does love this man._

Years from now they will be in a similar position and she will suddenly remember the times Ramsay would threaten to carve his name onto her skin in some cruel mockery of a soulmark. Attentive as he ever is, Jon will notice her stillness but as promised he makes no move to interrupt.

Their children and siblings are tucked into their beds and the Queen in the North has decided she would like to try something new.

Wordlessly, she uses her tongue to trace her name onto his skin. 

This is mine, she thinks. I can have this.

And so she does. 

**Author's Note:**

> cw: underage sex, incest, abuse (joffrey's treatment of sansa), miscarriage, descriptions of abuse/sexual abuse (ramsays treatment of sansa), child death, a scene where sansa masturbates while ghost is in the room. if there's anything else i should note please let me know x
> 
> the soulmate story was plato's, the title is walt whitman's and the northern story that inspired the favour scene was based on the story of tristan and isolde.
> 
> — _[come visit me on tumblr](http://swainlake.tumblr.com/)_


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